just another ex-jazz-musician/proto-rapper/Jersey-Irish-poet-actor/print-junkie/film-raptor/beat-hipster-"white Negro"-rhapsodizer/ex-hippie-punk-'60s-radical-organizer's take on all things cultural, political, spiritual & aggrandizing

Monday, October 27, 2014

ANOTHER NIGHT ON THE TOWN

The Cafe La Mama event I was part of tonight—reading a few old poems and a few new ones in a mix of other's readings that I unfortunately had to slip out of early to make it back to Jersey—was an opportunity to see some old friends and meet some new ones.

Since I didn't get a chance to catch everyone I won't comment except to say I did become an instant fan of Emily Skillings's poetry and look forward to hearing and reading more. Sorry to those I missed, but as I explained to the audience, back in the 1970s I did a reading with William Burroughs and a few others and Burroughs read before me and then exited, hurting my feelings which in those days I wouldn't even have been able to articulate except as anger and rejection of the old coot for missing my great work. But now I realize—as I have become an old coot myself—he was just an old dude who needed to either be elsewhere, even if it was just back in bed, or just didn't have the stamina, etc.

Anyway, it certainly is a pleasure to get to experience talented people whose work is new to me, and man there is just so many creatively gifted folks in the world, any world. Keep it coming.